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The Girlfriend's Guide to Health will be updated every Tuesday.... Stay tuned dear readers and let me rock your world.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Fear No Evil

My dear girlfriends, shall I be so bold as to confess to you
that I am, shall we say, a bit of a “fraidey cat” so to speak? Let’s me clear-
when it comes to fears I realize that I have some of the usual ones that most
human being share. For example- dying.

I’m not so much afraid of dying as I am not eager to do it
just yet. Furthermore- if I go, untimely or not- I hope it’s not really
painful. Yes, I’m afraid of the dentist (I hate the whole needle in the mouth
thing) and most definitely I’m not a little scared of really small plane that
could fall out of the sky at a moments notice. I suppose however that ties into
the whole painful untimely death thing.

But lately I’ve been thinking about more the irrational
fears that people all have and what makes one person scream in terror from a
spider while another can own a tarantula for a pet?

Perhaps some background for my cyber sisters….. A few months
ago my beloved asked me to go see a horror movie with him. I will mention the
movie (Cabin in the Woods) only to enrich the plot of this story and not to
provide a plug for this film. Girlfriends- I don’t support this flick. Look-
I’m not saying DON’T see the movie- go for it- you are grown girlfriends- this
just isn’t an endorsement, that’s all- let’s move on.

I am not a fan of horror films. I never understood the point
of sitting in the dark and being frightened for sport. No judgement to those of
my girlfriends who like a little terror in a formal setting. I never understood
the point of paying for fear. As my girlfriends know I’m a fanof racking up a credit card bill for
chic Italian boots and not something that makes me shake in them.

But it got me thinking about fears and phobias. I don’t mean
the big fears so much as of the irrational fears. You know, the things that we
are scared of and have no reason behind it. Have you ever wondered about the
things that give you a chill up your spine and for which you can’t
explain?Sure there are the usual
ones…. Spiders and snakes and horror movies. But what about the weird phobias?

Here is a laundry list of things I am afraid of:

1.SHARKS. Yes, I have an irrational fear of
sharks. I cannot look at a picture of a great white without losing my shit.
Make no mistake, I do not mind swimming in the ocean- in fact I rather enjoy
it. For some reason I never even think about the sharks when I do an open water
swim. But stick me in front of a photo of jaws and I’m reduced to a whilly
nilly. Go figure.

2.PLANETARIUMS: Crazy, no? I cannot sit in a
planetarium and look up at whatever night sky show they are showing without
holding someone’s hand and taking an ativan. Yes, it’s truly bizarre but
something I live with.

3.MINISKIRTS AND STIRRUP PANTS. My legs are not my
best feature. I do love wearing skirts and dresses but a miniskirt is never my
dress of choice. I fear that a day may come when miniskirt or leggings will be
the only selection available. Then will I have to raise my hem length in the
name of fashion? On that day my sisters…. Stick me in a shark tank in the
middle of a planetarium. I’m done.

Studies show that somewhere between 5% and 12% of Americans
have experienced some sort of phobia. Women are two to three times as likely to
have phobias than men.

The three basic phobias are social phobias, agoraphobia
(fear of open spaces or item specific phobias THE DSM-IV (psychiatry bible so
to speak has separated specific phobias into four basic categories:

Animal- my shark issue

Situational- flying for example

Blood injury- such as needles or giving blood

Nature-environment- such as thunderstorms

Though the experience of phobias is relatively common and
their physical characteristics are generally well understood, there is no real
consensus on the neurobiological basis of phobias. Scientist can’t really agree
on what makes a phobia come to being.

There are a few psychological models that exist to try and
explain why for example I pee in my pants at the sight of a shark and another
sister pays hundreds of dollars just to go swimming with them.

Most people do not recall having an initial negative
interaction or trauma associated with their phobia. Similarly, there are many
cases where people never come in contact with their phobic stimulus (that which
they are afraid of ). For example, many people who have flying phobias have
never actually been on a plane. In fact, almost half of all phobic people have
never had a painful experience with the object of their fear.

Dr. Martin Seligman a scientific authority on phobias
suggest that there is a primitive evolutionary influence to them- we are
conditioned to fear certain things over centuries in order to ensure our survival.
He proposes that phobias exist as a result of certain preexisting neurological
connections that exist evolutionarily. These connections are turned on with
relative ease.

The most convincing evidence in support of the evolutionary
model of phobias is provided by fear conditioning experiments using rhesus
monkeys. Wild rhesus monkeys fear snakes while domestic rhesus, unless
conditioned, do not. In the experiment the scientist filmed wild rhesus monkeys
being exposed to snakes. Needless to say the wild rhesus monkeys went
ballistic.The scientist then
showed domestic rhesus monkeys snakes and nothing happened. However after
showing the domestic rhesus monkeys the videos of their wild brothers and
sister losing it over the snakes, the domestic monkey became afraid. When these
now conditioned domestic monkeys were shown a snake, they lost they became some
pretty frightened monkeys. And again in the name of science we scare the shit
out of a bunch of perfectly happy monkeys…. Go figure.

Many people have turned to the brain in order to understand
the biological circuitry behind phobias. The amygdala is located in the
dorsomedial portion of the temporal lobe, has been proved to be intricately
tied in with the brain's perceptions of fear. A portion of the amygdala known
as the lateral nucleus is particularly responsible for fear responses. The amygdala
receives signals from such areas as the olfactory system, the hypothalamus, the
cerebral cortex, and the brain stem.

The amygdala then sends signals in turn to the cerebral
cortex and the thalamus and brain stem. In the cerebral cortex, the thinking
part of our brain, the fear becomes crystallized in our memory. In the brain
stem and thalamus the fear elicitsphysical response (nausea, palpitations panic). This is one proposed
theory about how our brain’s chemistry is involved in making our fears a
reality. But like most things in science there is much work to be done.

And so my sisters another week ends. I’ll never know why I’m
scared of the things I’m afraid of. Maybe its brain chemistry or my ancestral
brain sending me a survival message for the future. When it comes to my fear of
miniskirts, I am certainly grateful to my sisters before me for the head’s up.

About Me

Dr. Ali Zentner received her undergraduate medical degree from McMaster University and completed her Internal Medicine Residency with an extra year of Cardiology training at the University of Calgary. Ali has been practicing Internal Medicine since 2001 as a specialist in Cardiac Risk Management and Obesity. Ali is the author of The Weight Loss Prescription, published by Penguin books in 2013. It is the ultimate guide for healthy living and one hell of a book (no bias here). Ali also wrote A Good Life, a work of fiction, published in 2003. The novel has been best described as “Sex in the City” meets “ER” and details one woman’s struggle to find meaning in a world not always under her control. Both books are available on amazon.com. A classic overachiever, Dr. Zentner has completed the Vancouver marathon, and half marathons in New York, Vancouver and Toronto. She is an avid swimmer, runner and cyclist training for her next triathlon and who exercises to keep fit and to justify her next fashion purchase. She lives in Vancouver with her husband who says nothing about the size of his wife’s shoe closet (if he knows what is good for him)…